Time / Books

Time

I’m carving out more time for myself. One evening per week to work on my side project with a friend. One morning per week to be alone, out and about in the world, taking a workshop, or writing and thinking, or reading a book, or spending some time people-watching. (I missed people watching!) And one morning per week where my two-year-old goes to “occasional care” for three hours, while my baby has a nap, so I have an extra two hours then too. (Two mornings off! Oh my.)

I love love love love being the guardian and teacher and best friend of my two little kids, but I am definitely finding that having a spot of time away from them allows me to miss them and appreciate and love them even more – and to feel even more lucky and grateful to be around them everyday – and gives me more perspective and resilience to face whatever’s about to happen next. (Like the baby screech-crying from 4.30am until 7am this morning.)

So, time. There are four areas I want to work on this year with my precious, beautiful time.

Projects – I have a side-project going on, so I’m happy with the progress on this one. It’s taking a long time, because I can only meet up with my project-friend once a week, but we’re getting there. We’ve designed half of the first product, designed the logo, and we’re putting together a MVP trial for 3 customers to get initial feedback and see if our idea is 👍 or 👎.

Me Time – The two things I wanna do are writing and reading. (And for once, I’m doing better with reading than writing!) Also I love learning, so I’m always looking for little workshops and online classes and what-not.

Dream Home – This is my worst area. I suck at anything to do with houses. Interiors, exteriors, all of it. We’ve saved a bit of money to just redo the kitchen sink and cupboards and put in a dishwasher (our house is old and those cupboards are falling apart), and I so much don’t enjoy that sort of task that I keep deferring it.

Love – This is a continuation of my 2016 theme Beautiful Living, but renamed. I think I’m doing pretty well with my generosity, thoughtfulness, expressing my joy de vivre, and not being an under-buyer.

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Books

There are so many books that I want to read. The past 10 years (at least!) I’ve “wanted to read more books,” but have only ended up paying lip-service to that goal each year.

It’s so hard to maintain personal non-essential daily tasks when there are kids around – no kidding, I’ve tried to be super organised with my family and not forget things and not be late to things, and a pay-off is that I don’t get to shower everyday, and I swear I brush my hair once a week, if I’m lucky. Yup. I just can’t fit those things in too, while keeping everything else going smoothly. And you would think, brushing hair takes, like, two minutes, who doesn’t have time for that? But it all adds up. A bunch of tiny trade-offs are happening everywhere.

I digress! – books. Right. Well, I never thought I’d say this, but I’m enjoying reading books on the Kindle app. I thought I only liked paper books, with their paper-weight and individual character. I liked how different book designs and font faces gave different personalities to each book, and I liked how, if I was in chapter 12 and I wanted to go back to that description of that haunted house in chapter 3, I could easily find my way there, because I vaguely remembered the visual layout of chapter 3, and vaguely, the thickness of the read pages in my left hand at that point.

It took a while. But I’ve been finding it easier to actually read books with the Kindle app. I get a moment of free time here, a moment there. Using my phone or laptop, I can jump in and read a couple more pages, and I can read in the dark. I don’t have to remember to take a paperback with me.

This was an easy read, and interesting (as with everything, always, don’t read anything about it first!), but the characters didn’t quite click for me. I think some easy-to-read books potentially make great material for screenplays – I can imagine that in adding some other people’s takes on it, to life.

I might have hated it 5, 10, 15 years ago, but this book popped up at the perfect time in my life. (One question I’ve had since my first baby was born: How on earth does anyone cope with anything bad ever happening to their baby. And that’s one of the many things this book talks about.) I loved it.

★★★★★

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Fox Woods (@msfoxwoods)
Hello. Yes, my name is Fox. I love making things (clubs, workshops, events, communities, stories, products, videos, music). I have two (2) small kids and one (1) small dog. I made the kids, but not the dog. That would be weird. ⇢ more